There was a time when Michael Owen routinely returned to Anfield with his head held high but the Newcastle United striker has suggested he is virtually resigned to defeat there on Sunday. With no goals in his past nine appearances for the relegation-threatened Tyneside team Owen is currently a shadow of the young striker who made his name at Liverpool. Indeed, following Monday night's 0–0 home draw with Portsmouth his critics are urging Alan Shearer to drop him to the bench at Anfield.

"We go to Liverpool next and we finish the season at Aston Villa and, if we can get some points from those games, then of course we'll grasp them," said Owen. "But, being realistic, it's the home games [against Middlesbrough and Fulham] that are our major focus now."

Shearer's four-game tenure at St James' Park has yielded two points and a solitary goal, though against Portsmouth Owen spurned an excellent chance to improve that record. Newcastle's stand-in manager, whose side are three points behind fourth-bottom Hull City, has diagnosed a lack of self-belief on the striker's part. "Confidence in football is huge," he said. "But we know if we keep creating chances for Michael one will go in."

Unfortunately, right now, Newcastle seem better at conjuring moments of crass embarrassment. Just before kick-off on Monday night Graeme Danby, a Geordie opera singer, led an on-pitch rendition of Blaydon Races before crudely patronising the smattering of Portsmouth fans who had made the journey north, a round trip of 800 miles and 18 hours. "Have you come in a fucking car?" bellowed the microphone-wielding Danby before further taunting them with: "You're the Mackems of the south coast."

Pompey will not be making an official complaint but they were distinctly unimpressed. "It wasn't good," said a club spokesman yesterday. "It was unnecessary, cringe-making and embarrassing. The guy clearly got carried away."

Should Newcastle get carried away to the Championship, though, they could be punished for neglecting to insert clauses in their players' contracts stipulating a drop in wages in that eventuality.

Not that Shearer is resigned to such a fate. "Everybody will write us off at Liverpool," he said. "I understand that. But I saw Liverpool win at Hull last Saturday and they didn't play particularly well. Going for the title, they are under pressure too. You never know in football."